They don’t even bother with the yerras now

Watch how tight the ring fence is these days around the All-Ireland finalists. The word that comes to mind is ‘control’ in understanding the arm’s length mindset of the Dublin and Mayo camps since the semi-finals.

Are they wrong? Jim Gavin and Stephen Rochford want everything conducted in a controlled environment, and central to all that is the players in the respective set-ups.

Access is excess. And if the big loser is the man, woman, and child on the street, no one will mind once Sam Maguire is in tow Monday night. There’s no access to training (which I agree with), and a full lid on the media. By the time the Dublin and Mayo players head to Croke Park on Sunday, they’ll barely remember the few words they fed to the press at traditional media nights nearly three weeks ago.